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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How much of life which has ever been created, is living at the present time?
(a) about half
(b) about ten percent
(c) 80 percent of all life ever created still exist
(d) around 45 percent

2. When Dillard moves from describing details of creation to trying to understand more about creation what is she doing?
(a) getting a little strange
(b) moving from what to why
(c) trying to think too much
(d) moving from logic to mysticism

3. How do blind people who suddenly gain sight usually see objects at first?
(a) as black and white
(b) as patches of colored light
(c) as all gray
(d) as bigger than they really are

4. How does the author say one can obtain "unself-conscious state?"
(a) through intense exercise
(b) pure devotion to whatever one is doing at the moment
(c) through meditation
(d) through desperate illness

5. When a scientist disrupted pine caterpillars' food trail, what happened?
(a) they turned around and followed their trail back home
(b) the caterpillars could not restart a new trail
(c) half of caterpillars made a new trail off to the right
(d) they stopped, and stayed still until they died

Short Answer Questions

1. Before a baby can distinguish objects, what kind does it prefer?

2. According to Dillard, how is the past healed?

3. What changes about the view around Dillard's home when winter comes?

4. How long can a horsehair worm grow?

5. If there were only one tree in the world, what would happen, according to the author?

Short Essay Questions

1. The "Present", Chapter 6 is also about time, but a very specific part of it, the "now." What are some of Dillard's thoughts on being in the present?

2. How is the story about the caddisfly applicable to Dillard's obsession with the present?

3. What is her purpose in the mimicking?

4. How does Dillard relate the plankton to the Eskimo learning about Christianity and to herself?

5. This Chapter is called "Fixed." What are some of Dillard's observations and thoughts that illustrate this title?

6. What is kayak sickness?

7. In the second section of Chapter 11, Dillard stays almost exclusively focused on one topic, seldom straying. Why do you think she is staying so focused?

8. In Chapter 3, what has the reader learned about Dillard's attitude towards living creatures?

9. Dillard spends the entire chapter dealing with the passing of a hurricane. How does the theme of "floods" relate to other parts of the book?

10. Dillard believes that the death of the self is painless. What might she mean by this?

(see the answer keys)

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